Orthodox Church England

St Silouan the Athonite

3rd after Pentecost

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Before becoming Orthodox, I remember reading in a copy of Orthodox Outlook that monasticism was an essential manifestation of Orthodoxy, and that without strong monastic communities, both of men and of women, Orthodoxy was unlikely to flourish in Britain as it should.

Those of us who have come from other Christian traditions are likely to find this statement puzzling. In the Roman Catholic Church the religious life has, in the past been strong, but since the 2ndVatican Council it has declined.  Previously strong communities have been selling their buildings and moving to more modest premises.  In general there is a serious shortage of vocations to this life. I use the word “life” intentionally because that is what in essence it is.  On being professed as monks or nuns, men and women speak in terms of renouncing the world.

A similar situation exists in the Anglican Church.  For about three centuries monasticism was unknown in England, with the exception of Nicholas Ferrar’s brief experiment at Little Gidding in the first part of the 17th century, and perhaps Newman’s small community at Littlemore, near Oxford in the 19th , but most of that community, including Newman were already on their way to Rome.

There was also an Anglican Benedictine community based at Nashdom Abbey until quite recently. When numbers fell the remaining monks moved elsewhere, and now the further dwindling community of three or four elderly monks live in the former Principal’s House at Sarum College near Salisbury Cathedral.

In the Roman Church, the religious life has always been valued and promoted, however unsuccessfully at the present time, but in the Anglican Church it never really took a hold in the experience of your ordinary “man or woman in the pew”.  Few ever met a monk or a nun, or perhaps even knew that they existed within their church.

It is with our individual personal backgrounds that we approach the subject in the Orthodox Church. If your background is Roman Catholic, however, you will come with different pre-suppositions than if you are a former Anglican.

Let me say a few things about Orthodox Monasticism.  This dates from very early times.  St Paul writes of “widows and virgins”.  Some have seen in these references the beginnings of a consecrated religious life for women.  However that may be, by the 3rd century there were definitely hermits (solitaries) living in the deserts of Judaea and Egypt, rather as John the Baptist had done before them.  Some of these spent the whole of their lives as solitaries in prayer and asceticism.  Some attracted (passively) others who wished to learn from them and share in their way of life.  Here we find the beginnings of the communal religious life, the first small monasteries, if you like.

St Anthony, who is usually called the father of monasticism, was strictly not that at all because he himself went out into the desert and learned from those already established there.

Around these people there developed what has been called a “Wisdom of the Desert”.  Many of the sayings of these early Fathers were recorded and have survived.  I find them extraordinarily perceptive but they are more than that.  They speak of an “other-worldliness” that is in complete contrast to the world that we take for granted today because these people have already in a real sense left that world, a world that is passing.  They live, at any rate in part in another world, a world that represents true

Reality, a world that will never pass away, a world that is calling them ever more surely and clearly.

This is the tradition that has been passed down in the Orthodox Church from the earliest times.  In our church there are no religious orders following different rules set down by their founders.  The tradition has been passed down by word of mouth and example from Spirit-filled Elders to their spiritual children.   Also, the teaching of many saints on the spiritual life has been preserved.  Much of it is available in English translation. Some will continue the tradition through monastic life, but others in the world.  This is in many ways far more difficult.

This is because of the continual attractions and temptations of life.  However, life in the monastery is not easy either.  There, often an extreme asceticism is called for, and this is not for all.  Some fall by the wayside.  It can lead to great spiritual gifts and rewards, but unless a monk is under the guidance of an experienced Elder, there is always the danger of Satanic delusion.

You may wonder why I set out on this subject this morning.  It was inspired by the reading from the Apostle.  Listen to it again.  “Brethren, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Through him we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the Glory of God.  More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

As I read this it seemed to me that the apostle was speaking to those who, down the centuries, have followed in the monastic life.  He writes of the grace of God, that mysterious but essential free gift of God which enables us to experience a share in his Glory.  He also writes of the need to rejoice in suffering – definitely not an easy one, but we shall all suffer at some time to some degree, and if we are not prepared, or unable, to rejoice in our suffering it will be terribly spiritually destructive  It is only through this means that we will be enabled to grow in faith..

I have spoken this morning mostly about monks.  I have occasionally mentioned nuns, but in Orthodoxy the word monastic is an inclusive one.  It refers to both men and women.  Monasteries can also be for either men or women.  The word convent is not normally used.

I hope that this morning you will have seen some aspects of the Churches absolute need for people to enter the monastic life today, for without such a back-up the church will be weaker in its witness.

As a post-script, all Orthodox bishops are monks.  Our last bishop, Metropolitan John let it be known that being a monk was of the greatest importance to him.  Now, after a short time as our bishop he is our Patriarch, but I am sure that our new Metropolitan, who he will have had a major part in appointing to our archdiocese will, in due course, be a worthy successor.

Unfortunately he has suffered ill health for most of his time with us so far, but from my experience of him to date, although limited, I see him as an intensely spiritual man, a true monk, and we can give thanks to God for that.

As a footnote, Vladika Silouan not long ago had a new form of treatment in hospital for his condition.  When we pray for him in the Liturgy at present it will be especially for his restoration to full health.

St Columba

1st after Pentecost. All Saints, St Columba

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The origins of Christianity in the British Isles, particularly, that part now called England, can be traced back to Roman times, even if much of this is legendary, but when the Romans withdrew in order to defend other parts of the Empire Britain became vulnerable to invasion and eventual occupation by heathen tribes from Northern Europe.  In this situation the Church retreated into isolated pockets here and there until the arrival, from Rome, of St Augustine and his companions.

Scotland was never under Roman control, and the Church does not appear to have penetrated to that region before the 6th century when it was left to missionaries from Ireland, where Christianity was already well established, to proclaim the Gospel – particularly in the Western Isles and parts of the mainland.

One such missionary, and the most important, was Columba, sometimes known as Columcille, or “Dove of the Church”.  Today, the 9th June we celebrate the memory of this missionary from Ireland. The circumstances of Columba’s arrival and settlement in Scotland may seem a little strange.  He does not appear to have received any inner calling to be a missionary but he was an educated man, having studied in a monastery in Galloway.

Being educated meant that he could read and write, and had a knowledge of the scriptures.  In the monastery he had copied a book of Psalms. When this was completed, there was a dispute over who owned this copy- Columba, who would have spent many weeks, even months producing it, or the owner of the original, Finnian.

Columba did not want to give the book up and he instigated a rebellion against the King of Ireland. This does seem to be rather a drastic reaction on the part of Columba and it is not clear where the book fitted into this situation but the episode culminated in a Battle at Cooldrevny in 561 in which 3,000 men were killed.

For his part in this, Columba’s confessor, St Molaise, prescribed the penance of leaving Ireland, and going to Scotland to preach the Gospel.  He was to convert as many to Christianity as had been killed in the battle, and he should never again return to Ireland.

In obedience, in 563, Columba and twelve companions left Ireland.  He was then 42 years old, and initially he began evangelising amongst the Scots of Dalriada, parts of which overlooked Northern Ireland. Columba soon realised that he should go to an area out of sight of his homeland, so he moved further North, settling on a tiny island in the outer Hebrides called Iona.  This was no more than three miles across at its widest point.  Here he built a monastery which, although it was destroyed at the Reformation in the 16th century, has since been restored as a base for the ecumenical Iona Community, a widely dispersed Christian ecumenical fellowship.

Columba, with some companions then turned to the greater challenge of converting the Picts of Caledonia.  Initially they had little success, but the situation changed after Columba with two of his companions, Comgall, and Kenneth visited King Brude at his fortress overlooking Inverness.

Brude refused them entry to the fortress but, when Columba made the sign of the Cross before the gates they swung open of their own accord.  The king was converted there and then, and the rest of the Picts not long afterwards.

On one of his journeys in that area Columba encountered a group of Picts who were burying the body of a man who had been killed by a water monster which lived in the River Nesa.  This is considered to be the first written reference to the Loch Ness Monster.  The account goes on to say that, shortly afterwards, Columba saved another man by ordering the monster to retreat – which it did, leaving its prey behind.

Columba died in 597 in the monastery on Iona and there he was buried.  His tomb soon became an important place of pilgrimage and remained so until the Reformation although Columba’s relics had been removed 150 years after his death.  They were shared between King Kenneth whose share was kept at Dunkeld.  The remainder were taken to the church of Downpatrick, in his native Ireland.

Columba’s feast day is celebrated on June 9th, the date of his repose and, although his history might suggest that he was an obvious candidate to be patron saint of Scotland he was, in due course, replaced by the Apostle, St Andrew who, as far as is known, had no connection with Scotland whatsoever!

As you may have realised from this brief account, very little is known about Columba and the details of his mission except that its outcome bore fruit in the lasting conversion first of the Picts in the North and then the eventual spread of the faith through other parts of Scotland.

The details have been lost in the mists of time and, of course as a result of the 16th century Reformation which, in Scotland, took an extreme form, destroying many the visible remains relating to Columba and others.  The reformers had little time for obscure saints no matter however important their historical input might have been, and they would have been far happier with St Andrew as a patron saint if they had to have one because, unlike Columba, he featured as an apostle in the Gospels.

What we do know of Columba should be sufficient for us to realise that this man after a somewhat questionable start in Ireland crossed to what became  his adopted country in obedience and, with his companions embarked on a mission which bore lasting fruit.

All Saints

All Saints: First after Pentecost

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“Marvellous is God in his saints:  bless ye God in the Congregation”.  Those were the words proclaimed as the Prokeimenon this morning, the words that introduced the reading from the Apostle, and which vary from Sunday to Sunday.  “Marvellous is God in his saints:  bless ye God in the Congregation.”  You can’t be Orthodox, and not take note of and venerate the Saints – from the Theotokos to those glorified in our own lifetimes. Today is All Saints Day.

The Apostle this morning was taken from the Epistle to the Hebrews.  It is a quite well known passage, and remarkably appropriate for today.  It outlines, from the perspective of the Church at the time of writing, (A.D. 70 at the latest) the faith, the witness, and the sufferings of the saints.  It does so from the perspective of 30 – 40 years of persecution of varying intensity, and it is true that the majority of the saints during this period gave their lives as witnesses to their faith.  They were martyrs, but there is also a recognition of the fact that there were those who in words, part of which inspired a sentence in the Anaphora of the Divine Liturgy of St Basil – familiar to us. “They went around in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, ill-treated – of whom the world was not worthy – wandering over deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.”  These were the ascetics, those who gave up all in order to live lives of prayer as solitaries.  We sometimes think of this way of life becoming popular when martyrdom was no longer likely, after the conversion of Contstantine.  Perhaps at that point it became more popular, but as we see from this reading it goes back to the earliest Christian period.

So already here we find two of the traditional classes of saints – martyrs and ascetics.  To these we could add a third – confessors.  Confessor in this context means not someone who hears confessions, but someone who, by his or her life, bears extraordinary and steadfast witness to the Christian faith, but is not called upon to die for it.  An example of a confessor would be St John the Apostle – the only one of the Twelve to die in his bed at the end of a long life.

Just as a footnote, and perhaps un-necessarily, I should say that martyrdom did not begin with Christianity.  We find it in the Old Testament too. Many died as witnesses to their faith as Jews during the Maccabean period of the 2nd cent. B.C.  There is the well known example of the mother who was forced to witness the cruel deaths of each of her sons, and encouraged them in their suffering with the hope of Resurrection, before herself suffering the same fate.

It is probably true to say that never at any time during the past two millennia has the likelihood of martyrdom for Christ been absent somewhere or other in the world.  I think that we can also say that the die was cast when the Lord himself was nailed to a cross.  We think in terms of the “passion” – the suffering of the Lord.  We sometimes use the same word, “passion” of the suffering of the saints who died with the image of the cross, the suffering of their Lord in their hearts to give them strength, and the hope of the resurrection, as the Lord himself had been raised.

The number of those who died for Christ is unknown.  It is obviously possible to arrive at some kind of a total by collating all the calendars of saints, but at least as many have been forgotten as we can find by this means.  Numbers are not important, and even if they have been forgotten on earth, every one of them is known to God.  However, one thing is pretty certain, and it is a statistic that I have quoted before, more died as martyrs in the 20th century, mainly in Russia after 1918, than in the previous 19.  In Russia, there was a systematic attempt to destroy the Church, by the arrest and execution of its clergy and others or, as an alternative, send them to the gulags where it was likely that they would suffer a lingering death from hard labour, starvation, and the extreme Siberian cold.

Even today, in our supposedly enlightened world Christians are persecuted.  In Muslim countries it has always been a possibility, and we have seen instances of it recently in Egypt.  In Iraq, the Christian population has plummeted from what it was only twenty or so years ago – not by the martyrdom of large numbers, but by a culture of fear causing those able to do so to emigrate. Eastern churches that have been a part of the scene for at least eighteen centuries in the Middle East are dying, or transplanting to other parts of the world.

So what about our “tolerant” society here in the West.  It remains unlikely that anyone here will suffer martyrdom, but there are more subtle forms of persecution.  In general we only hear of cases that come to court, but just to take one example, what about the wearing of crosses at work, or placing palm crosses in a taxi?  Probably most people would receive a warning and conform, but there are some who do stand out and take an employer to court to challenge their dismissal – and usually they seem to lose their cases.  The is also the political correctness that would abolish Christmas, and make school nativity plays unrecognisable to an earlier generation.  But what of the other side?  It seems to many, and possibly rightly, that our minorities are free to wear and carry items which distinguish them – the Sikh with his turban, the Muslim women with their veils with very little challenge.

“The blood of the Martyrs is the seed of the Church”.  Some kind of witness is necessary, even in the face of ridicule.  During the first three centuries many died, but still more came forward until it became quite clear that these methods were useless.  It was then that Constantine adopted Christianity, on the basis that it was better to have the God of the Christians with him than against him.  The Chi-rho sign, which the emperor saw in a vision was carried on Roman shields and standards, and those who had suffered under the last great persecution not long before came out, or were released from their labours in the mines.

Constantine despatched his mother to the Holy Land to identify the Holy Sites, and to build churches.  The emperor himself built churches in Rome in honour of the Apostles Peter and Paul. He moved the capital of the empire to a very minor city on the banks of the Bosphorus, and Byzantium became Constantinople – from the start a Christian City.

There were many mistakes, and we might question the “Christian-ness” of the immediate outcome, but this was the beginning of a new world order.

So where does this leave us?  “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfection of our faith.”

Pentecost

Pentecost

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There was a time in England when last weekend would have been called Whit Weekend because in the West the Sunday was Whitsun, or Pentecost, and this was followed by a holiday Monday.  Now, the Monday is called Spring Bank Holiday, and is not attached to Pentecost at all.  Tomorrow will be Spring Bank Holiday because that has been re-named for the last weekend in May as a permanent secular holiday.  It is a pure co-incidence that, this year it is also Orthodox Pentecost.

As we heard from our reading from the Acts, when the Feast of Pentecost was “fully come”, that is fifty days after Passover or, in Christian terminology Pascha, the Apostles were all together in one place.  Traditionally, that place was the upper room at the house of the mother of the writer of the second Gospel, John Mark.  Here, tradition tells us, Jesus and his apostles held their last Supper together and here also he appeared to them on at least two occasions after his Resurrection.  They were there because Jesus had told them, just before his Ascension, that they were to wait for the fulfilment of the promise of the Holy Spirit.

In obedience, they waited for ten days, and then it happened.  We heard the account this morning from the Acts of the Apostles.  It has been suggested that this book might have been more appropriately called the Acts of the Holy Spirit because they were moving into an entirely new chapter.

In those first few years, the Spring time of the Church we are given a feeling of freshness as the apostles and other disciples live lives of obedience, consciously guided by the Holy Spirit, and carrying absolute conviction in all that they said and did.  The link was so close that they were able to say, without any sense of presumption that “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us ….”

So, let us just remind ourselves of what happened on that Day of Pentecost.  After ten days of waiting, following Jesus’s Ascension they were all together, presumably again in the upper room, when there was a sound from above like that of a mighty wind.  This filled the house, and there appeared tongues like flames of fire among them and resting on each of them.  They were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them the power of speech.

This was the best account that those present could give of the event – that the sound was “like” a mighty wind, and the tongues were “like” fire.  But the sound was not wind, and the tongues were not of fire. Both wind and fire are natural elements, potentially of great and fearsome strength and power.  How often are we reminded of this in news bulletins today?  At that time these were some of the most fearsome and powerful forces known to men.  Today man has conjured up even greater forces, but a nuclear explosion still manifests itself in wind and fire.

These powers and signs were manifested to literally kick start the apostolic mission which Jesus had entrusted to them. “Go and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit – and lo, I will be with you always, even to the end of the world.”

And how effectively it worked.  They were unable to be contained within that upper room.  They were compelled to go out and to share their experience with the crowds in the streets – people from all nations touched by the Jewish Diaspora, or dispersion, people speaking a variety of tongues, but who heard the message in their own language.

Then Peter came to the fore and proclaimed the Gospel to the crowd and, we are told, some 3,000 people were added to their number on that day.

How weak, by comparison, is our witness today.  In today’s Gospel, Jesus stands up on the last day of the Feast.  This was not Pentecost, but another Jewish feast, that of Tabernacles, or tents.  On this, they make booths out of branches and camp outside as a reminder of their history in the desert.

“If anyone thirsts” says Jesus, “let him come to me and drink.  He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” “This he said,” adds the writer of the Gospel, “concerning the Holy Spirit, whom those believing in him would receive.”

We may wonder why it is that the church seems to lack the same strength today.  In our Baptism and Chrismation we have received the gift of the Holy Spirit – usually in a much quieter way than at that first Pentecost – but we have received him.  Since our Chrismation we have also been able to receive the Body and Blood of Christ in Holy Communion.  “If anyone thirsts” says Jesus, “let him come to me and drink.  He who believes in me, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water”.  Those who come to him truly believing and truly trusting receive the gift in renewed strength, and the church itself is renewed as on that first day of Pentecost.

Ascension

Sunday after the Ascension (1st Ecumenical Council)

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There was recently a piece in my daily newspaper on the subject of recent developments in mathematics.  The details were far too obscure for me, but what it seemed to be about was some recent research into time and space.  Of course, we are all familiar with the daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly cycles in time, but this seemed to be at the other end of the scale, and in a different dimension.

Last Thursday was the feast of the Ascension, which marks the conclusion of the ministry of Jesus on earth, and his ascension into heaven, into the presence of his Father.  As he was received into the cloud he passed into another dimension in space and time – entirely beyond human knowledge and imagination.  He passed through a portal, a doorway into this ultimate dimension that we call “heaven”.

The Crucifixion of Jesus was followed, as we know, on the third day by his Resurrection, and this was followed by a number of so-called “Resurrection appearances”.  Some of these are recorded in the Gospels.  Some are not.  Two which were not are referred to by St Paul.  Writing on the subject he refers to an occasion, not recorded in the gospels, when he “appeared to five hundred brethren at once”.  He also writes of his final and exceptional appearance, some time after his ascension, on the road to Damascus, to Paul himself.  This Paul saw as his personal call to be an apostle.

Last Thursday marked Jesus’s final appearance in the immediate post-Resurrection series, and it is clear from the Gospel accounts that this event marked the completion of one phase, and left the Apostles looking forward to the next, ten days later, the coming of the Holy Spirit.

We earth-bound creatures find ourselves in a three dimensional universe.  That is the background to our life-experience and we find it very difficult to imagine anything beyond this.  Yet, to return to where I began, some scientists and mathematicians propose not only a fourth dimension, but a universe of many dimensions.

I don’t understand the science or the mathematics, but it does seem to me that such theories and ideas may help to explain what lies behind certain Biblical events – such as the Resurrection, such as the Ascension, such as the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

This does not mean that they help us to understand, or that they give us scientific information.  They do not, but surely Shakespeare wrote the truth when, four hundred years ago, in his play Hamlet, he wrote that “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy.”

It has been said that people only believe in heaven because they are afraid of death.  That seems to be a very sweeping statement.  After all the Christian view has a place not only for heaven, but also for hell, as the final destination of the wicked after the Last Judgement.

What we are to understand from our Gospel readings from Pascha to Pentecost is that there is, in fact, another dimension – neither placed above, nor beneath our assumed three dimensional universe, but perhaps superimposed, or alongside it – a dimension which, although not obvious to us, truly exists, and with which we are able to communicate in prayer.

So after his Resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples, as we have seen, on a number of occasions.  The first was to Mary Magdalene in the Garden.  She fell at his feet and wanted to kiss them, but Jesus forbade her because he had “not yet ascended to his Father”.  That evening he appeared in the Upper Room to his disciples, although Thomas was not there.  When the disciples told Thomas, he refused to believe.

The following week he appeared again to all the disciples, including Thomas.  He called Thomas over to him and invited him to put his finger into the nail wounds, and his hand into his side, where it had been pierced by the centurion’s spear.  That was enough.  Thomas not only believed, but fell on his face with the words, “My Lord, and my God”.  Was that wishful thinking?  I don’t think so.  It was true belief – conviction.

During this period, one minute Jesus was there, among them, the next he was gone.  And yet this was a very special and limited time.  It was not to be always like this.  The time was coming when they would no longer see him as they had done before.

This morning’s Gospel is read as a comment on the Ascension.  In fact, in the Fourth Gospel it is recorded at the Last Supper, but it looks forward exactly to the time in which we find ourselves now.

Some people have called this the Lord’s High Priestly Prayer.  Jesus prays that the Father may “glorify his Son, that the Son may glorify him, since the Father has given the Son the power to give eternal life to all whom he has given him”.

This prayer, although set in historic time is clearly intended to reflect the prayer that Jesus continually prays before his Father in that place that we call heaven but which, as I suggested earlier, is not a place at all, as we understand the word “place” in three dimensional terms.  It is a place which, in one sense is far away but, in another sense, very near to us.

This prayer is too complicated to detail in a few minutes, but Jesus is praying for his disciples in all the trials and challenges that they will face when he has gone from them because “now I am coming to thee (his Father), but these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.”